Posts Tagged ‘sleep’

8:47PM. My 5 yo is not asleep yet. Or rather, she’s woken herself enough to realize that I’m standing by the door to her room and that she hasn’t heard me sing her song yet.

I sang their songs out of order tonight. Usually I sing the sillier one first, to get it out of the way. It’s “Hush Little Baby”. I’ve come up with an inordinate number of rhymes. In my version, Papa buys them coats of wool, bright red Chevys, shiny pots, puffy clouds… you get the idea. After that I go for “the closer”, a slow lullaby that usually puts them right asleep, and if not, awfully close. Tonight for whatever reason I sang the slow one first, and now the silly one hasn’t settled them down.

“I didn’t hear you sing my song yet!” she wails. Close to tears, my youngest daughter tells me that I can’t go, she didn’t hear me singing, and I have to stay. I weigh my options. If I go now, she won’t fall asleep, upset as she is. If I stay, am I being weak, giving in, a soft touch? Will I be easy pickings when she’s seventeen and wants to take the car for the weekend?

I decide to stay. Kneeling by her bed, I sing my silly song, quietly, sotto voce. She’s asleep before I reach the end. It must be one of the sweetest moments as a parent, sitting beside your child as they sleep. The time will come soon enough, when they won’t want me to sing lullabies to them, or read bedtime stories, or have anything to do with them at all.

DW and I had a nice break tonight courtesy of Andrea and Mary (THANK YOU!) who came over to watch the kids and put them to bed while we went out.

Since it was a bit last minute, we didn’t have anything planned, and we didn’t feel like eating out, so what did we do? Why, what every happily married for 10 years couple would do! We went to Canadian Tire (a hardware/houseware/garden store)! I kid not. The new one, on Lakeshore and Leslie. It was pretty nice, actually.

And what better way to cap of a trip to the hardware store than by visiting a local cafe called Chocolate Heaven? It lived up to its name with made in-house chocolate truffles, tarts, cakes and cheescake. Coffee and chocolate… mmm. I thought, “We should have worship team meetings here…” 🙂 I had a ‘Turtle’ Tart (pecan, chocolate chip, caramel tart) and an Americano. Probably why I’m still awake and not sleeping yet. Whoops.

I love checking on the girls after they’ve gone to sleep. I sneak in, turn off their light, turn down the music, and pull their covers back over them. Tonight the Comic mumbled something and smiled in her sleep. The Linguist cried and flailed a bit with her arms before settling down. She’s been sick lately, so I can understand her discomfort, even in sleep. I give them a kiss, and whisper “Daddy loves you” before sneaking out again. I like to think it helps them sleep better.